Like the Greville Bow Brooch, the Greville tiara came from the collection of Dame Margaret Greville, the wife of the Hon. Ronald Greville. Margaret and her husband had had no children, and she bequeathed all her jewellery to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother upon her death in 1942.
The tiara was created in 1921 by Lucien Hertz, who was a designer for Boucheron. The diamonds for the tiara came from another tiara that had been made for Margaret in 1901. The new tiara was created in a honeycomb design.
Queen Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother, wore the piece for the 1947 State Visit to South Africa, in what was perhaps the tiara’s first public outing since the inheritance. The tiara was altered in 1953 by Cartier, who added height by rearranging the brilliants at the top into clusters and adding brilliants from a brooch that had been unset in 1949.
Queen Elizabeth wore the tiara often, and in 2002, it was inherited by her daughter Queen Elizabeth II. She also loaned the piece to the Duchess of Cornwall, now Queen Camilla, who wears it often.1
Thank you for the information on the tiaras.